Rosalinda Guillén

Rosalinda Guillen is a farmworker and community organizer from Washington state. She was a leading organizer in a union drive at the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery in the Yakima Valley from 1987 to 1995 and is the founder of the nonprofit Community to Community Development.

Early life Guillen was born in Texas but spent most of her childhood in Coahuila, Mexico. Her father came from a Tarascan indigenous village in Michoacán but began working as a migrant laborer in Texas after his father died. Her mother grew up as an orphan in Coahuila. Guillen moved with her family to La Conner, Washington when she was ten years old and lived in a farmworker labor camp, helping her parents in the fields when she was not in school. At age 17, Guillen got married and worked with her spouse as a migrant farmworker. She later worked at Skagit County Bank for sixteen years.

Organizing activities Guillen first became politically involved through the Rainbow Coalition, where she was trained as a community organizer for Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign.

Political beliefs Guillen cites Cesar Chavez as her inspiration and has also been influenced by the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil. She considers farmworkers in the United States to be the country's largest landless workforce and advocates for their rights to own the land they work on. She opposes piece rates and instead supports paying farmworkers an hourly wage. Guillen has spoken and written about the effects of pesticides on farmworker health and other issues related to agricultural working conditions. She is also an advocate for undocumented immigrants, who she claims make up a large proportion of the agricultural workforce.

In addition to being involved with Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns, Guillen served as the Whatcom County Democrats Affirmative Action Chair.